Heavy Business

Originally published in 1986

Based on interviews with men in prison, this study takes two groups of convicted criminals: men convicted of robbery, and, for comparison, a sample of men convicted for breaking into commercial premises. It focuses on how victims are chosen, the decision-making processes involved, and the characteristics of those selected and those rejected as unsuitable potential victim material. Also described are the pattern of the crime (time, place, gain), and the ways in which people become involved in it. Allowing several convicted robbers describe in their own way why they did it and what they thought and felt about it, Dermot Walsh presents a disquieting picture, in which robbery appears to be an attractive proposition to several different groups of men, facing quite different circumstances, and for different reasons.